1. Evaluation of an Interprofessional Team Seminar Course in Preparing
Medical Students for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice
Fred Rottnek, MD, MAHCM2; David Pole, MPH1,2; Milta O. Little, DO, CMD3
1Center for Interprofessional Education & Research, 2 Family and Community Medicine, 3Internal Medicine, Division of Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine
familymedicine.slu.edu
ipe.slu.edu
Study Aim
IPTS Course Objectives
Exemplar Student Quotes
Communicate your professional role and responsibilities clearly to other care professionals and explain the roles and responsibilities of other care providers and how you will work together as a team to meet patient care needs.
Explain the relationship between effective team communication and improved patient safety & health outcomes and identify attributes of effective teamwork that contribute to improved patient care and outcomes.
Demonstrate skills at effective interprofessional teamwork and patient-centered communications that integrate the knowledge and experience of other health professionals and patients to provide appropriate care of the patient.
To assess clinical application of interprofessional education didactic sessions using student critical reflections.
I will now be sure to emphasize the critical nature of certain patients during handoffs (24)
The teamwork enabled patients to receive their care in a timely manner and led to shorter hospitalizations. Interdisciplinary rounds nearly eliminated information discrepancies and allowed consistency, which translated to a more coherent plan of care and ultimately better care for the patient (36)
I truly believe that interprofessional care is superior. Having many people's eyes and ears open is bound to help catch mistakes, and having many health care professionals trained in different ways and approaching a patient in a different manner helps the patient, and the rest of the team better understand the patient and provide better care (2)
50% of CRs included statements indicating transformative learning directly attributed to IPTS. (NOTE: Commenting on this was not prompted in the reflection instructions).
IPTS sessions made me think of the medical team as a coordinated unit, rather than a collection of individuals providing specific services (62)
IPTS helped to identify areas of weakness as well as areas of strength that have helped me in interactions with different health professionals during my clinical rotations thus far (65)
Background
The Interprofessional Team Seminar (IPTS) course engages over 600 post-baccalaureate students from seven professions during the clinical training phase of their programs. Professions include:
♦ Medicine ♦ Physical Therapy
♦ Nursing ♦ Occupational Therapy
♦ Physician Assistant ♦ Social Work
♦ Pharmacy (St Louis College of Pharmacy)
IPTS faculty facilitators represent all seven professions, participate in pre-seminar faculty development sessions, and share their experience with collaborative practice.
Following AY , and the publication of the IPEC Core Competencies for Collaborative Practice, the course directors conducted a review of student program evaluations, held a focus group with medical students who completed the course, and engaged the faculty facilitators teaching in IPTS in the process of revising session activities.
For AY , the activities for each IPTS session were revised to embed, and require students to explicitly practice, IPEC core competencies during the activities.
Methods
Students were instructed to write a critical reflection (CR) on a clinical experience and to describe how interprofessional teamwork impacted patient care or outcomes in that setting. They were also instructed to consider this in the context of the activities in IPTS.
Qualitative Study Design. Descriptive content analysis. 101 of 175 med students completed usable critical reflections. Investigators analyzed 101 reflections.
Investigators conducted a deductive content analysis to determine how the student critical reflections correlated to course learning objectives.
An additional inductive content analysis was completed to identify themes across the student reflections.
Results: Themes within Student Quotes
New understanding and appreciation for the roles and responsibilities of other professions in patient care.
New appreciation for the importance of effective communication and teamwork in patient care, patient safety, and outcomes.
Increased confidence and skills to engage other professions while in the clinical practice setting.
Plans and intentions to communicate and practice more effective teamwork with other professions in the future.
IPTS provided concrete examples & demonstration of IP collaboration and a safe place to practice/ask questions.
Specific quotes that indicated transformational learning as a results of the IPTS learning experience.
Conclusions and Implications
Embedding the practice of IPEC competencies in the IPTS course enables students to develop awareness & skills as collaboration-ready practitioners.
IPTS enables students to recognize roles of other professions and engage with them in patient care.
IPTS provides a “safe” place to practice teamwork and communication skills resulting in students’ ability to identify positive and negative teamwork in a clinical setting and the impact on patient care.
IPTS Small Group, Faculty Facilitated Discussion
Society for Teachers of Family Medicine 41st Annual STFM Conference on Medical Student Education
Feb. 5-8, Atlanta, GA.
The IPTS course is supported by SLU School of Medicine and a grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.